Texas tied its own hands on K-12 online education while Florida invested: Heidi Cruz

The coronavirus pandemic has forced the closing of schools across America — some for the rest of the school year. Public school leaders are scrambling to come up with ways to keep learning on track during this education shutdown. Like thousands of parents across Texas, Ted and I have been thrust into the role of part-time teacher. Unfortunately, some states have the ability to provide more resources to hardworking K-12 educators and parents than Texas does right now.

In Texas, we are hampered by a law enacted in 2013 greatly restricting full-time online education to just six of the state’s 1,254 school districts and charter schools. Correctly, in response to the current pandemic, Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath quickly issued a waiver overriding the 2013 moratorium. However, the state begins this battle with a small infrastructure of providers and courses.

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